


A Question of Strength

by Jackjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:44:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackjunkie/pseuds/Jackjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack deals with the aftereffects of his encounter with Hathor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question of Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Tag to Hathor  
> Originally published in the zine Gateways 1

* * *

Bowing over the gleaming, white porcelain, Colonel Jack O’Neill puked his guts out.Not that there was much left in him to come out since this was far from the first time this day that had happened.Still, he remained poised over the bowl until he was sure the retching had passed before flushing and rising to walk over to the sink to rinse the sour taste from his mouth.

He spit out the mouthful of water and lifted his head, taking a deep breath.His eyes were caught by his reflection in the mirror.Sweeping down over his chest, visible beneath his unbuttoned shirt, they came to rest just above his belt.Slowly, Jack rubbed his hand across his body, feeling for some scar, some vestige of his "wound" as Captain Carter had called it, but the skin was as unblemished as ever.

"Crunches," he had joked to Carter when she had marveled at the smooth expanse of his abdomen.He had just emerged from the sarcophagus and hadn't yet begun to remember what Hathor had done to him.

It was as though pieces of his memory had been blacked out.At first he hadn't even realized anything was missing.Then, Carter had said some things that didn't make sense.He'd tried to think about it and discovered he couldn't make connections between recent events.He felt like his brain had been short-circuited.Frustration pushed down an initial wave of panic.What was happening in his head?Why couldn't he think straight?Had someone been messing with his mind?Had he said anything while he was out of it, given away any classified information, endangered his team, his government, his world?Jack felt lost, adrift in shifting riddles.

Dr. Fraiser theorized it was an effect of the drug the alien goddess had used on the men.The effect had been temporary, and it hadn't taken long before the memories returned, in fragments at first, an image here, a word or phrase there.Eventually, the whole, ugly episode had come back to him, and Jack remembered it all now.In fact, he couldn't stop remembering.

Hathor had enslaved him along with all the other men on the base.She had used some kind of mind control drug on them, beyond their technology and experience.They became a willing army for their new mistress.

The Air Force colonel who was accustomed to giving orders had felt his will totally subsumed by the Goa'uld.The sticky, sweet fumes he inhaled clogged his senses until his mind was no longer his own.Another presence was directing it, changing his very thoughts to patterns of Hathor's design.He was possessed by an overwhelming need to serve her, to do whatever she wished of him.He burned with the desire to please her, no matter the request, no matter the sacrifice.She was his queen, his goddess, his very life, and he would gladly give himself to her to use as she saw fit.

Completely enthralled, Jack was in no condition to realize that the fate she intended for him was one he held in the deepest revulsion.She planned to condemn him to carry a hated Goa'uld larva inside his body.She planned to make him into a Jaffa.

As a soldier, he was a logical choice.The Jaffa were warriors.Hathor couldn't have known the particular horror O'Neill felt for that state when she singled him out for her honor.He knew, however, that it would have made no difference to her.He and the other men were tools in her plan to populate the earth with Goa'ulds.Their feelings were of no importance to her.

Jack had come to accept that a Goa'uld larva was an intrinsic part of Teal'c, his friend and SG-1 teammate, but he tried not to think about it if he could help it.On the few occasions "Junior" had emerged from Teal'c's pouch to show itself, O'Neill had turned away and tried very hard not to gag.Aside from the fact that it was butt ugly, the thought of the parasite cozily inhabiting his friend's body literally turned Jack's stomach.Teal'c was nurturing a being who embodied evil in a manner not previously encountered in all the colonel's experience of war.The Goa'uld were a threat to the entire human race, and Jack was dedicated to protecting humanity from their menace.He understood that Teal'c had no choice in the matter and would die without the immune system it provided him, but Jack did not want to become personally acquainted with it or any other Goa'uld.

He supposed it was ironic how very close he had come to becoming extremely intimately acquainted with one after all.Not that he'd had a choice either.Despite all his Special Forces training in resisting mind control, he could not stand against Hathor's drug.He'd never before encountered anything with a comparable combination of speed, strength, and undetectability.It insidiously penetrated his barriers like an enemy infiltrating behind opposing lines before he had a chance to bring any of his defenses to bear.Even now that they knew of its existence and properties, Dr. Fraiser had not succeeded in developing an antidote or immunization.Jack believed his only protection against it was avoiding further exposure.If it were ever to be used against him again, he feared he'd fall under its onslaught just as he had this time.

There was one point when he'd recognized Hathor was affecting him in some way that he couldn't understand.Some part of Jack O'Neill had fought its way through the spell she'd woven around him.He had gone to her and attempted to question her about it, but she had overcome him effortlessly.

His eyes fell shut as he relived that moment yet again, the remembered scene painfully vivid against the blackness of his closed lids.

The chemical wafted softly from her exquisite mouth, and he absorbed it eagerly as though it were the breath of life.The flowery fragrance overwhelmed him, each breath drenched with an exotic perfume which made his head swim.The cotton candy taste, sweet yet insubstantial, left him hungering for more.

Jack hadn't suspected her intention when she'd embraced him.He'd seen the energy glowing from the tool on the belt she wore but never guessed at its vile purpose - not, that is, until she enfolded him in her arms and pressed his body to hers.The energy had seared into his gut with the most excruciating torment he'd ever endured.He was pinned, like a butterfly fluttering helplessly on a collector's display, unable to move, unable to pull away, unable even to cry out in his agony as the Goa'uld technology lanced into his body, carving him into a Jaffa.

His strength was drained along with his immune system, and he would have collapsed if Hathor hadn't held him up during the process.He did collapse the instant she let him go, stumbling back against the wall and examining the freshly cut slits in his skin with trembling hands before sliding weakly to the floor.

The shock must have diluted the drug enough so that some of his own horror leached through the false desires she had imposed on him.Jack felt violated, his very body invaded by the enemy.Anger flooded him at his own weakness... the physical weakness compelling him to depend on his assailant for support during the assault as well as his weakness of will in allowing it to happen.Hathor, on the other hand, had appeared to derive an almost sexual enjoyment from the interlude.

It was something of a sexual role reversal, he realized.She had created a "womb" in him in which she intended to implant one of her children.Yet the act held nothing of the warmth of the human lovemaking he'd shared with Sara when they conceived Charlie.This bore a much greater resemblance to the rape he later learned Hathor had inflicted on Daniel Jackson.Daniel and Jack were destined to be the unwilling human partners required by the Goa'uld to release Hathor's children upon an innocent Earth.Ra would have found it a fitting revenge.

Jack must have passed out then because the next thing he remembered was Hathor helping him into the bath in the locker room where she had given birth to her children.She settled him into the water in the midst of the swimming larvae so that one of them could enter his pouch and complete his transformation into a Jaffa.

Jack sat helplessly, still in shock he supposed as the disgusting things swarmed about him.He felt them writhing and wriggling over his body, instinctively searching for the opening to the pouch where one of them could make its home.His skin crawled with revulsion, but he felt powerless to prevent it.He wanted to scream, wanted to swat them away, to jump from the water before the unbearable happened.He didn't know how he could stand feeling one of them actually crawling inside him.Although the entry processes for a host and a Jaffa differed, was this how Skaara had felt or Charlie Kawalsky or Sha're when the Goa'ulds had invaded their bodies?

He longed to at least go down fighting, but he lacked the power to do even that.Just when he thought he was lost, salvation arrived in the form of Carter and Fraiser and Teal'c.The women and the Jaffa rescued him from the water before implantation and healed him in the sarcophagus before it was destroyed.He was Jack O'Neill again - at least in body.

He wasn't so sure about the rest of him - his mind, his spirit?He couldn't put it into words.He was thankful his teammates had saved his life, but they had been too late to save all of him.Jack felt that somehow a part of him had been lost.Hathor had taken something away from him that he didn't know how to get back.All he knew was how badly he wanted to hurt her as she had hurt him.

They had exterminated the larvae and driven Hathor from Earth.She had escaped through the Stargate.Though deprived of the immediate chance to strike back at her, he had no doubt they would encounter her again.But for now, Earth was secure from her machinations.That was more important than his need for revenge.

Jack opened his eyes and somberly regarded his reflection in the mirror.He could still feel the squishy, wormlike nudges against his skin.He shuddered, then bent over the toilet as he retched once more.

* * * * * * *

** Smack! **

Jack's bat made a satisfying sound as it connected with the ball.He adjusted his grip on the wood and pulled it back over his shoulder to prepare for another swing.

** Smack!Smack!Smack! **

Pitch after pitch from the machine was answered with the same solid sound.Jack was on a roll.

A red mist formed over his sight, and he blinked it away.The next ball flew towards him, converting as it approached into an image of a squirming Goa'uld larva.

** Smack! **

Jack hit it squarely, splattering the hideous creature into oblivion.

Each ball represented another of the hated aliens.Occasionally, the image changed from a twisting larva to the smiling face of Hathor, but each time Jack smashed the ball to a figurative pulp.He continued until the machine was empty.When he saw that no more balls were coming, he lowered the bat and stood in place, breathing hard.

"O'Neill, when Dr. Fraiser advised R & R for you, I understood that rest was a component of that treatment.I do not think she intended you to drive yourself to physical exhaustion."

"I can rest later.This is the recreation part," Jack waved away Teal'c's concern, still wheezing a bit between words."Baseball is the all-American pastime.Should be just what the doctor ordered."He gestured to his offworld friend to join him in the batting cage."Come on in.I'll give you some pointers."

When the doctor had advised some time spent away from the base, Jack had taken the opportunity to initiate Teal'c into the mysteries of Earth's sports.During the drive to the park, the team leader had attempted to explain the basics of the game which the majority of Americans learned in childhood.

Once he got past his difficulty with the concept of a game played for fun and viewed it in what was to him the more comprehensible terms of a training exercise of sorts, Teal'c eagerly absorbed the fundamentals.

The two men spent some time tossing a ball back and forth then gave up their game of catch to head for the batting cages.

Jack hadn't exactly anticipated his batting practice to turn into a battle with his private demons, but then, most every aspect of his life was turning out that way right now so he wasn't entirely surprised.He shook off the remnants of his visions and concentrated on showing Teal'c the proper stance and the correct way to hold and swing a bat.Then, he backed off and started the machine.

After only a couple of misses, Teal'c began to hit the balls on a pretty regular basis.

The rhythmic swings lulled Jack as Hathor's apparition again shimmered into view.He ached to wipe that teasing, superior smile from her sensuous lips, to banish that smug gleam from her taunting eyes.Even in his imagination she reigned victorious, laughing at his helplessness.

His hands balled unconsciously into fists.How he hated her for what she'd done to him.She'd treated him like a puppet, pulling the strings as he danced to her imperious tune.The worst part of it was she hadn't merely forced him to do whatever she wanted... somehow she'd made him want the same things.He wanted her to rule the Earth, he wanted her to command the base, he wanted her to command him... he wanted _her_.

Appalled at the way she'd controlled his actions, sickened at what she'd done to his body, Jack yet recognized she'd gone beyond that physical force to a deeper level to manipulate his thoughts and feelings, at least for a time.She'd plumbed the dark depths of Jack's soul and brought forth a base lust he hadn't known he was capable of.He'd have done anything, hurt anyone, for an approving look, a caressing touch... he even welcomed the pain her caress brought in that brief, ecstatic moment before his own senses had partially returned.He could remember his intense desire, but all he could feel now was utter disgust... with Hathor, yes, but also with himself for his failure to resist the urges she'd inspired.Despite Dr. Fraiser's explanations about pheromones, Jack couldn't rid himself of the notion Hathor had stolen a piece of his humanity and left behind in its place a feeling somehow alien and unclean.

When the last ball had been pitched from the machine, Teal'c exited the cage.

Shaking himself from his reverie, O'Neill gave his friend a congratulatory slap on the back."Any more homers like that, and you'll be giving Hank Aaron a run for his money in no time."

Teal'c cast the colonel a puzzled glance."It was my understanding that the object was to run the bases oneself for fun and exercise, not give the run to someone else for payment.Who is this Hank Aaron?"

"He, uh, holds the home run record," Jack explained as they walked across the grass in the direction of the parking lot."I just meant you were batting almost well enough to present a challenge to one of the game's best players.It was a compliment."

"I see."Teal'c solemnly considered O'Neill's words."Thank you."

"Don't mention it.You sure you never played this before?For a rookie you picked it up awfully quickly."

"Swinging the bat is not unlike swinging the staff weapon in hand-to-hand combat.I have done extensive training in that with Master Bratac."

Jack kicked absently at a stone in his path."Yeah, right.Martial arts, war games, sports... it all comes down to battles of one sort or another."

"And what battle are you using this game to fight, O'Neill?"Teal'c's eyes seemed to penetrate Jack's casual facade with their intense gaze."That against Hathor?"

Jack stumbled but caught himself before actually tripping.He should have known he wasn't fooling his comrade.The SG-1 teammates had gotten to know each other very well.It was a quality necessary for their missions, but it could be an awkward one at times like this."Something like that," he mumbled, unwilling to commit himself to revealing the full story.

"It is one thing to prepare.It is another to wear ourselves out fighting the enemy before he stands before us," the Jaffa pronounced.

"Yeah well, there's more than one kind of enemy."

Teal'c continued walking beside Jack in silence for a few moments."You speak of the enemy within," he said at last."The battle that must be fought with oneself."

Jack tugged his baseball cap lower over his eyes."Having a Goa'uld running around the base was unsettling.It doesn't happen every day, you know.I just need to get a few things settled is all."

"I know the Goa'uld I carry makes you uneasy.It was unpleasant for you when Hathor tried to make you into her Jaffa."

"Unpleasant.Yah.Teal'c, anyone ever tell you you have a gift for understatement?"

"You have faced a fate your enemy would impose on you and have survived.This can only strengthen you."

Jack thought that over."We have a saying," he told his companion."That which does not kill me makes me strong."

"It is a good saying."Teal'c nodded his approval."I will strive to remember it."

"So will I," Jack said as they arrived at the car, and he unlocked the doors.Privately he dismissed the axiom as irrelevant in his current situation.He didn't feel any stronger - quite the reverse.

They said little as they drove back to the base.Both were occupied with their thoughts.Jack hoped Teal'c's were about baseball.He appreciated his friend's solicitude, but he couldn't talk about the Hathor incident with the Jaffa.That was the problem:Tealc was a Jaffa himself - a Jaffa who hoped to save his people from that fate in the future, and one whom Jack knew opposed Hathor's actions but a Jaffa nonetheless who couldn't possibly perceive what had happened with the same abhorrence as the human.No, he couldn't talk to Teal'c about that.He returned to the much safer topic of baseball.

* * * * * * *

Shutting himself in his office, the colonel immersed himself in paperwork.This probably did not come under the doctor's definition of rest either, but it had the advantage of keeping his mind focused on something other than the encounter with Hathor.

He was interrupted once by Captain Carter who attempted to recruit him for a dinner expedition to town.He declined, making a valiant attempt at a smile to allay the worried expression in her wide blue eyes.Although grateful she'd saved his life and proud she'd led the women in Hathor's rout, he wasn't up to her company tonight.Apart from the fact that just the mention of dinner set his stomach churning again, he couldn't face the prospect of spending the evening being cheered up.He was pretty sure that was what Sam had in mind.She meant well, but it was the last thing he needed.

After a couple of hours of burying himself in his work, Jack headed home for the night.

Climbing out of his car, he approached the entrance, his mind still back at the base.Some sixth sense warned him of another presence, and he halted warily, until he recognized the silhouette leaning against the wall by the front door.

"Hello, Daniel," he greeted tiredly as the man straightened and stepped forward out of the shadows.Jack really wasn't in the mood for another pep talk.

"Jack," came the quiet answer.

Reevaluating the situation as he got close enough to see the haggard expression on the scientist's face, Jack opened the door and extended an arm in invitation."Come on in."

Tossing his jacket on the nearest chair, O'Neill watched Daniel run a hand through his long hair."How 'bout a beer?"

"Sure."

Collecting a six-pack from the kitchen, Jack returned and handed a bottle to Daniel."Let's take 'em up here," he suggested with a movement of his head to indicate Jackson should follow him.He led the way upstairs to the roof where he had his telescope set up.The two men got settled comfortably and started on their drinks.

The cold liquid soothed Jack's throat.When it showed no immediate indication of coming up again, he took another cautious sip.He gazed quietly up at the stars.It was a clear night and multitudes of them were visible, pulsing and glowing against the inky sky.

"Sometimes it's hard for me to realize we've actually been up there," he observed."We've traveled to so many worlds, and yet we've never really been in space, in a ship, flying past the stars."

"Yet, Abydos is there," Daniel agreed, "and somewhere Sha're..."

"And Skaara," Jack added.

"Chulak."The anthropologist looked away from the stars and back down at his friend."And Hathor."

Jack returned the look evenly."And Hathor.We'll go after her someday.We can't do it right now because we're not equipped, any more than we're equipped to defeat Apophis.But we will be."He uttered the statement as though it were a vow."It's a strategic decision, and I have no problem with it militarily."

"Ah," Daniel nodded, tilting his bottle forward for emphasis."But how about personally?"

"Oh well, personally," Jack shrugged."Personally, I'd like to blow her pretty ass away with a bomb just like the one we used on Ra."He took a final pull at the beer bottle and opened another.

Daniel did the same."I know how you feel."

"Do you?"The question was a challenge.

The response was quiet, but firm."Yes.I do."

Hard brown eyes stared across the dark rooftop to penetrate through glass lenses to the distressed blue eyes beyond.What they read there reminded him he was not the only one with a grievance against Hathor.

"Yeah, you do, don't you?" Jack sighed.Daniel was the one person who'd been... damaged was the word he settled on, by Hathor as he had been.

"Hathor took over the base, drugged the men, imprisoned the women, even had Teal'c and Dr. Fraiser shot, but you and I are the ones she... violated."Daniel's last word came out little above a whisper."It's natural if we take it personally."

"Natural?There's nothing natural about what happened," Jack protested.Drawing a shaky breath, he continued, "I should have taken her more seriously from the beginning, not treated her like some harmless nutcase..."

Daniel shook his head, denying the usefulness of O'Neill's wistful hindsight."Then what?What would you have done, Jack?There was nothing any of us could have done.She was too powerful..."

"I should have stopped her," Jack interrupted savagely, "somehow.I'm the team leader, for cryin' out loud, and I let her get to me."He dropped his eyes."I let her get to you."

"Let her?Me?"Daniel closed his eyes for a moment then opened them and gazed squarely at O'Neill."Jack, don't take that onto yourself.You had nothing to do with that.I took her cuffs off.She got to me as soon as she showed up.Hathor's the villain here."

"Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll - you tried to warn me, but I brushed it off with a joke."Jack's fingers tightened around the bottle's icy neck as though it was Hathor's lovely throat he was wringing.

"Even knowing who she was, we had no way of knowing what she was capable of," Daniel argued."That's the trouble with age-old myths - the lack of reliable information.We tried to fight her.She was too strong for us.We've got to accept that."

"I can't accept it," Jack demurred."I've been in bad situations, Daniel.I've fought, I've been hurt but nothing on this scale."He shook his head and went on listlessly."Hathor broke me.She took everything I had, everything I am, and left nothing to fight with."

"Not everything, Jack."

"Daniel, she took my body, and she took my mind."His voice was filled with despair."What else was there?"

"Something of the host remains," Daniel murmured softly."There was your heart, Jack, and your soul.She didn't touch those.She didn't touch mine."

Closing his eyes, Jack gave a small shake of his head."I'm not sure I have either one of those left."

"I am."Jackson smiled sadly."You wouldn't be feeling responsible for what happened to me if you didn't."

"Habit," the colonel averred."I can't get past what I almost became.Oh, I'm functioning.I'm going through the motions, but it's eating me up inside."

"Is that why you've been running to the men's room about every hour to throw up?"

Jack blinked."Oh, you noticed that, did you?"

"Kinda hard to miss."

"Yeah, well..."He turned bleak eyes to his friend."I can't get her - get them - out of me.I can still feel her, Daniel.Burrowing into my gut, trying to fill me with one of those...those things..."

"Those things that I helped her create."Daniel's statement lay like a raw chasm between them.

"She forced you..." Jack excused him.

"Yes, she did."Daniel's eyes were unfocused as he gazed past Jack into the night or into his own dark past.He folded his arms across his chest."I can still feel her, too, Jack.Feel her hands on me, feel what she did to me, feel what she made me do..."He shivered and hugged his arms more closely together.

"Daniel."Without conscious thought, Jack was up and across the intervening space, reaching out to grasp Daniel's shoulders."It's over.She's gone.She can't hurt you anymore."

The blue eyes came back into focus and shifted to gaze into the depths of the brown ones."Can't she?" he asked simply.

Jack's arms dropped from his hold on his friend."You're right.She is still hurting us both.Isn't she?"

Daniel nodded mutely.

"What are we going to do, Daniel?"There was a pleading look in O'Neill's dark eyes.Jackson was the one he looked to in dealing with emotional situations.He was no good at it.Action was more his forte than feelings.He just couldn't cope with this emotional overload he was now undergoing.

"I don't have any easy answers, Jack."Daniel put down the bottle he was still holding and removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands before putting them back on."I think I came here tonight because I had questions," it was his turn to reach out and grip Jack's arms, "and somehow I felt that in order to get past this, we have to start facing those questions together."

Jack half expected the familiar sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, but somehow it didn't come.Instead, he felt a thread of relief that he wasn't in this alone.Daniel may not have brought him a resolution, but right now just having someone to share the pain lightened it.Drawing renewed strength from that sharing, Jack managed to dredge up a faint smile of acquiescence.He brought his hands up to clap Jackson's arms reassuringly before they each released their hold on the other.

With one final glance at the stars, Jack started across the roof to go back downstairs.He had an idea they had a long way to go before reaching some resolution of the painful issue, but he already felt lighter for the good beginning they'd made.Making an effort to share this new mood, he declared, "I think we're up to some tough questions.I'll take Goa'ulds for a hundred, Alex."

He was rewarded with a tentative smile from Daniel.For now, that was enough.

**The End**

  


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>   
>  © November 1998 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp.  
>  The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters  
>  who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names,  
>  titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.  
> 

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